The word Office has come to mean a suite of productivity products from Microsoft that includes Word, Excel, Outlook and depending on your needs other programs like Access, OneNote and more. But Google, which has become a verb in its own right, is determined to give the Bill Gates and company a run for their money.

Enter Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets. This cool new “product” from Google lets you keep all of your data online so you can edit, retrieve, use your documents from anywhere. And yes, you can import your Microsoft documents and use or save them in Docs and Spreadsheets. But can you afford it? If you can afford $0, you can. Check it out and let us know what you think.

But there’s more to it than word processing and spreadsheets. What about email? Sign up for a free Google email account and you can manage your email from the same interface. And Google really does email pretty well. The interface provides you with all the bells and whistles of modern email clients from filters, to archiving and what about storage space? I’ve got 2.8 GB of space! That’s a pretty big mailbox.

Just like the old cable TV commercials though, I have to say “But wait! There’s more . . .” You can manage contacts, your calendar or group calendaring and much more. The docs and spreadsheets interface even lets me collaborate with others on a document. We can all login and work on it together.

It does sound pretty cool and I continue to learn more as I go, but . . . I have to confess I still use Microsoft and my testing of Office 2007 so far leaves me impressed with how they continue to improve upon their products.